It doesn't have to be teaching, said the headmistress, there's always the civil service.

The scene, from the film An Education, took me hurtling back through the decades.

The wood-panelled study was a carbon copy of the one at my girls' grammar school – although I don't remember 'The Vulture', as we called her, having any of Emma Thompson's charm.

The sentiments were identical, too. Teaching, civil service, nursing or secretarial were the jobs it was instilled in us we should aim for.

There was no doubt about it: university was the first goal. But, just as in the film, based on the memoirs of journalist Lynn Barber, no one could explain to us quite what the point of all that studying might be.

The changes in the intervening four decades have been swift and strong. In the early years of my working life, there were few women doctors or lawyers; before long, females made up more than half the recruits to the professions.

A woman reading the news made headlines in the mid-1970s. Next thing we knew, we had a woman prime minister!

Barriers are being broken still. Respect to fighter pilot Kirsty Moore, who was the first woman to fly with the Red Arrows.

But now what do we hear? The president of the Girls' School Association saying it is wrong to tell girls that their ambitions should have no limits.

Jill Berry, headmistress of Dame Alice Harpur School, claims it is unrealistic and damaging to lead young women to believe they can aim for the top at the same time as raising a family.

She is right to assert that it is not easy, that 'having it all' can mean 'doing it all', and that there is a price to be paid.

But she has chosen the wrong target. It is young men who need to learn that they, too, will need to make compromises to juggle paid work and family responsibilities.

Neither gender should be seeing its aspirations curbed at such an early stage, however.

And while it is tempting to start a feminist rant, I suspect that the young women Mrs Berry is addressing and their male peers will find their own solutions. They have, after all, started life with many advantages.

The area where equality most needs to be addressed is in the less well-off sections of society. It is outrageous to suggest any diminution of expectations for them.

Take, for example, the young women at Bristol's estimable Meriton centre for young mums. Unplanned pregnancy could have been a disaster but education is proving a spur to help them create a future for themselves and their families.

Who would deny them their chance?